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Stormwatch: Team Achilles Vol 1 8
| StoryTitle1 = The Winter War | Synopsis1 = Jukko Hämäläinen visits a desolate Finland and places flowers to the graves of his deceased friends, on the anniversary of Finland's Winter War. Jukko returns to New York City via Project Entry and attends a firemen's bar. He is joined by Midnighter - who is out of costume - of the Authority, who is curious to know about him since Team Achilles' confrontation with the Authority in Chechnya. Jukko tells his story to Midnighter. Since Finland's victory in the Winter War with the Soviet Union, the country had been terrified of the growing might of its communist adversary when Russia developed its first atomic bomb and the subsequent failures of the uprisings in Hungary and Prague in the Eastern Bloc. But inspired by superheroes from the west such as the High and Jenny Sparks, Finland began funding and creating its own superhuman program to deter against the Soviet Union. Among the people who volunteered for the program were Jukko's comrades from the Osasto Karhu ("Bear force"), which includes his fiancee and his brother Lemminkäinen. While Jukko instead refuse to join. It was all for naught, as within months the Soviet Union collapsed. The useless super-Finns drifted away. Jukko's brother Lemminkäinen, however, had other ideas. He was a very powerful superhuman, who could affect minds and matter by sheer willpower. He became a politician, and his superhuman empathy made him hugely popular - his speeches resonated with the entire country, and his extreme right-wing opinions triggered a sea change in Finnish politics. His warped ideology evolved, and he soon became convinced that it was necessary to uplift his entire people to a superhuman level. A formidable psionic field called the "Masking Wall" was erected by a Finn named Pekka Viljo, Jukko's best friend - from outside, everything seemed as if it were normal. But within months, Finland's government, a thrall to Hämäläinen's super-willpower, was committing horrors similar to that of the Third Reich. The whole population was herded into superhuman enhancement centers. Millions died, unable to survive the transformation into superhumans. Hämäläinen was obsessed with making his brother Jukko into a superhuman too, so Jukko could see the glory that would be his. Jukko, gifted with an incredible willpower, resisted all attempts to make him a superhuman for eight months, forcing his body to reject everything that was tried to enhance him. But after so much time, for a moment Jukko briefly lost his concentration and was turned into a superhuman against his will. Given with the current powers to inflict the feeling of pains to others, Jukko inflicted all his sufferings to Lemminkäinen to show him what his madness had wrought. The feedback incinerated Lemminkäinen - but unknown to Jukko, Lemminkäinen had a mental link to almost every surviving Finn in the country, which were all killed from being shared with Jukko's pain. This event greatly burden Jukko to permanently leave his native country. After Lemminkäinen's death, the few Finn survivors (some of them superhuman) revealed the world about what had happened in Finland and decided that they would leave Finland's Masking Wall up and turn their country into a international safe haven for refugees all over the world, as long as they were willing to learn the Finnish language and weren't superhumans. This meant the Finns themselves would leave - but keep a watchful eye on Finland, and crush anybody trying something suspicious against their superhumans-free haven. After finishing his story, Jukko and Midnighter establish themselves as sort-of friends. | Appearing1 = Featured Characters: * Supporting Characters: * Antagonists: * Lemminkäinen Hämäläinen * Stalin Other Characters: * ** ** Locations: * ( ) ** *** * ** Rajamäki ** Winter War *** *** * ( ) ** *** Berlin War * ( ) * * ** *** Hook N' Ladder Items: * Vehicles: * | Notes = * The time of Lemminkäinen Hämäläinen's death and the incident in Finland coincide with the Authority's war with Sliding Albion during the "Shiftship" story arc ( -8). | Trivia = | Recommended = | Links = }}